Using Output Estimations in Game

 I use a lot of estimated output on articles on this blog so I felt it was worth a glimpse at how I personally use those to help inform decisions.  One of the primary things to consider is that all in all this is a dice game and with how small the sample size is over the course of a game or even an event there will be wild variations compared to the estimates.  Given that variation I rarely take an action expecting that outcome will .  

Instead I often assume I am going to do a least a wound or two less and take a wound or two more.  You can't reasonably plan on huge swings but I think it is worth being a little bit pessimistic as doing so will often guide you into smart choices.  Typically that means I am going to pick out the really important things I need to happen in a round and build redundancy into my plan.

For example if I need to do 5 wounds to a regiment and my estimate is 5 to 6 wounds with a regiment I'm going to try to make sure a second unit is in position to clean up if I am below my estimate.  Sometimes this leads to arranging my activations such that a ranged unit can chip in prior to a regiment charging in and blocking line of sight to a priority target.  I'd rather get my priority engagements resolved and deal with a little bit of efficiency lost due to ensuring resolution than leave a regiment I really need gone on the table.

Defensively it also means I'm going to play a little bit conservatively in order to keep units on the table as long as possible.  Table state is going to play a big role into decisions here.  Sometimes you get forced into committing more than you'd like to not give up scenario advantage, but it is worth pointing out that the best defense is always distance - you can't get hit if your opponent doesn't get the opportunity to attack.  This can be especially true of very mobile units like Raptor Riders where it is easy to over extend them when it isn't really beneficial to do so.

I wouldn't recommend using estimates as a hard guide for what to expect at the table.  Dice simply provide for too much variation and an individual game simply isn't going to provide enough of a sample size to push all that heavily towards expectations.  However, knowing the most likely outcome range can gives you tool to help plan turns and inform decisions.  Personally I tend to lean a little more on the conservative side - expecting to need to use a little bit more resources than the estimate and expecting my opponent to do a little better than average this mind set informs my overall playstyle and has generally been reasonably effective for me. 

As alway thanks for reading

-K